


Collapse

by Steadfxst



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US), Real News RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Panic Attacks, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-06 15:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15889242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steadfxst/pseuds/Steadfxst
Summary: Jim Sciutto is in love with Jim Acosta and Liz Landers, and he plans on taking that secret to his grave.





	1. Shock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ruthvsreality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthvsreality/gifts), [navree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navree/gifts).



> This is _exactly_ what you guys asked for. Remember that.

Sometimes when the panel devolves into snarking at and nitpicking each other, Sciutto finds himself mentally exiting the conversation. Sure, it’s his job to keep them on track, but he’s not their babysitter and viewers eat it up. He gets where the criticism for CNN being “infotainment” comes from.

So while they argue the merits and missteps of planning Trump’s military parade, Jim lets himself go somewhere else. It feels cliché to call it a happy place, but that’s what it essentially is. Today, it’s a beach. And he’s sitting on the beach with his sunglasses and some tawdry beach read that has a lot of sex and few facts between the covers. Jim licks his lips.

“We’re going to have to take a commercial break, and I’ll be back with my panel in just a moment,” he hears himself say.

When the show wraps, he’s got some time to kill before he fills in for Jake. He heads to the cafeteria, grabs a sandwich, and sits down at an empty table. He’s not alone for very long.

“This seat taken?” she asks.

He smiles.

“Please, go ahead.”

His heart flutters bit. He had a soft spot for Liz Landers. Everyone did.

“Where did you go?” Liz asks.

Sciutto shakes his head, brow raised.

“What do you mean?”

Liz smiles.

“Come on. You can tell me. I know a glassy eyed stare in the middle of a panel when I see one.”

“Alright, you got me. I was on the beach.”

She takes a sip of her tea.

“That sounds nice. What were you doing there? Swimming?”

“Reading.”

Liz nods.

“Figures. You and your big brain.”

“Oh, it wasn’t anything educational.”

Liz’s brows rise up once.

“Oh?”

He feels his face heat. Liz smiles.

“You’ll have to tell me about that sometime, but it’ll have to be later. Jim’s taking me to a ballgame!”

“II-I will,” he stutters. "Have fun!"

“I will!”

And then she leaves in a cloud of lilac perfume and the sound of high heels on tile. Sciutto throws away the rest of his sandwich. He didn't have much of an appetite anymore.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Sciutto!” Jim says.

_Shoot-oh._

He stops in his tracks, swallows down some butterflies, and turns around. He can’t suppress a smile.

“Hey, Jim. What’s up?”

“Are you busy tonight?”

Jim claps a hand on his shoulder when he catches up. He licks his lips.

“Um, no, I’m free. Why? What did you have in mind?”

Jim beams like he held the sun in his mouth.

“That’s great. A bunch of us are getting drinks after work. I hope you can join us.”

“Y-yeah, I can join you.”

The hand on his shoulder is still there. It’s _warm_. He’s being heated up from the outside in.

“Great! I’ll text you the details!”

Jim removes his hand. The warmth is gone, and then so is Jim.

Sciutto stands there for a moment, wondering where he had been walking to before Jim had come by. He has no idea.

 

* * *

 

The bar is crowded, but not packed. Sciutto shows up a little later than planned, not wanting to be the first one there, stuck with Jim and Liz alone. (He assumed Liz would be there. Jim and Liz were nearly inseparable these days. He often wondered ~~dreaded~~ when they were going to go public.)

He sees Dana and Anderson first, and he orders a drink before walking over to them. He eases into their conversation, and they smile.

This wasn’t so bad. He has  _friends_ here. There was nothing to worry about. There were plenty of people to talk to.

“Hey, Sciutto!”

_Shoot-oh._

Oh, now she was saying it like him. He turns around.

“Hey, Liz.”

“Isn't this great?” she says.

It’s a little hard to hear her. Either the music had gotten louder, or it’s the sound of his heart pounding in his ears is blocking his ears. He leans down a little to talk to her.

“It is. Thanks for inviting me.”

Just because he had a stupid, irrational crush didn’t mean he didn’t have manners.

“It’s ---- for mor--!”

Sciutto swallows. He sees her lips move, but he has no idea what she said.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

Liz stands on her tip toes and takes a hold of his shoulder. The same shoulder Jim had clasped earlier that day. Then she’s speaking directly into his ear. Her lips brush against the shell of his ear.

“I said, it’s good for morale!”

She lets go, and she smiles as her heels land back onto the floor. Sciutto feels frozen to the spot. He reminds himself that he needs to say something.

Something.

Liz frowns. Her brows furrow.

_Anything._

“Are you okay, Sciutto?”

Before he can take the time to appreciate the way she says his name, he blurts:

“I need some air.”

 

* * *

 

He makes his way out the back entrance and finds himself in an alley. It’s not too atrocious, so he doesn’t care. He grabs his knees and takes deep breaths. He had been in war zones and covered any number of live shots in dangerous areas. He had been  _shot_ at for god's sake, but having Liz Landers in his ear was more than he could handle.

“Fuck,” he says.

The back door opens again.

“Sciutto?”

_Shoot-oh._

“That’s me,” he says weakly.

“Liz told me you ran out here.”

There’s a question in there that he doesn’t know how to answer.

“Everything okay?” Jim asks.

He throws up.

“Oh, shit,” Jim says. “Guess not.”

He’s shaking now. Sometimes this happens when his nerves are frayed. It’s his body’s natural response to extreme duress.

“I’m gonna go get you some water. Will you be okay here by yourself for a minute?” Jim asks.

“Yeah. I think so.”

When the door shuts behind him, Sciutto briefly thinks of bolting. Perhaps if he didn’t work with the man and have to see him nearly every day, he would. He sits down on the back step instead and digs his nails into his palms. He counts to 100 as he waits until Jim comes back.

 

* * *

 

“Here, take some sips of this,” Jim says.

Sciutto comes out of his reverie when a glass of water is pressed into his palm. Everything feels too hot. He puts the glass down on the step to shrug out of his jacket. Jim sits down next to him once he’s settled. This means the entire left side of his body is now touching the entire right side of Jim’s. He trembles.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jim says.

Jim reaches up to rub his back, and he flinches.

“Please don’t touch me right now.”

Jim throws his hands up in surrender.

“I’m sorry. If there’s something I can do—”

Sciutto takes a sip of water.

“I think I’m gonna go home.”

“Okay.”

He stands and hands the still-full glass back to Jim.

“Do you need a ride home?” Jim asks.

“Took a cab.”

“Call me when you get home.”

“I will,” he lies.

 

* * *

 

Back at home, Scuitto kicks himself.

A panic attack.

A fucking _panic_ attack over a stupid crush.

“Two stupid crushes,” his mind supplies.

He balls his hands into fists and paces his living room. He reminds himself of what the doctors said about anxiety and managing it. To take deep breaths, to count to one hundred, to picture a happy place. He sits down on the floor of his living room and forces himself to go there.

Scuitto imagines the beach. Tries to see the waves lapping against the beige sand. Tries to hear the sound of gulls. The palm trees. The fluffy clouds.

Instead, he sees a man and a woman walking towards him. She’s wearing a risqué swim suit, and he’s in trunks. They wave, and Jim waves back. Slowly they get closer, and he realizes who it is.

“Don’t panic,” he reminds himself. “Let the thoughts come. They cannot hurt you.”

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Liz says with a laugh. “Are we, dear?”

Jim beams.

“Pretty much the opposite,” he says.

The tranquil beach scene shifts rapidly. There’s a tangle of limbs and sand in uncomfortable places and mouths everywhere at once.

Scuitto opens his eyes with a gasp.

He’s still sitting on the floor of his living room. He’s alone. He’s hard, too.

“Fuck,” he says, putting his head in his hands and runs his fingers through his hair.

He unzips his pants and takes his dick out. There was no point in fighting or denying it: he was in love with Jim Acosta and Elizabeth Landers.

 

* * *

 

There’s a soft knock at his office door.

“Come in,” he says.

It’s Jim.

“Hey,” Jim says. “You never called last night. I just wanted to see how you were feeling.”

He knows he must look haggard to Jim: dark circles under his eyes after he tried and failed to fall asleep and red lips from licking and biting them—a nervous habit he’s had his whole life—are both very telling. At least he can’t see his hamper, where he’d tossed the shirt he’d jerked off onto last night.

“I’m okay. I’m sorry that I didn’t call.”

Jim hesitates in the doorway for a moment before he steps inside his office and shuts the door behind him.

“Can I sit down?”

Scuitto feels like he can't say no, so he nods. Jim sits.

“What’s up?” he asks as casually as he can.

“I—I know it’s none of my business, but what happened last night?”

Jesus, where to begin? He looks up and sees Jim’s big brown eyes, looking at him with sincere worry.

“Um. I get panic attacks sometimes in loud places or when I’m already feeling anxious.”

He swallows hard. Jim shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” Jim says. “The bar was pretty crowded. Next time, I’ll pick something quieter.”

_Next time?_

“Sure, Jim. If you see Liz before I do, tell her I’m sorry, too. I probably frightened her running off like that.”

“Frightened, no. Worried, yes. We care about you, you know?”

_Oh!_

The butterflies return. They try to fly up his throat again. He swallows them down once more.

“Thanks, Jim.”

Jim smiles at him, and he feels like he’s going to fly apart.

“See ya later, Sciutto.”

_Shoot-oh._

The door clicks shut behind him with a finality that brings tears to his eyes.

He exhales.


	2. Denial

So he was in love with Jim Acosta and Elizabeth Landers. Fine. There wasn't a point in denying it, was there? Jim is pretty sure that would only make him feel worse if he pretended his feelings for them weren't there.

And anyway, it wasn’t a big deal. He certainly wasn’t going to make it into one. He was a professional, and he would learn to get over these feelings. He had gotten over much worse things, like war and death. How hard could it possibly be to get over love?

There’s a knock on his open door, and then Jim pops his head in.

“Hey, I heard you’re filling in for Wolf today.”

“I-I am,” Jim stutters. He squeezes his pen a little tighter. He cocks his head to the side. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Washington?”

Jim smiles.

“Not today. Liz and I are going on a mini vacation this weekend, so I got off early.”

Jim waggles his eyebrows, and he fights the mental imagines that swarm his consciousness. Of Liz straddling Jim’s thick thighs. Of Jim lacing their fingers together on a mattress. Of Liz’s head thrown back, mouth open in ecstasy.

“Sounds like fun.”

“Anyway, I had to grab a few things from the office, and I wanted to say have a good weekend since I won’t be seeing you on the split screen until Monday.”

“You have a good weekend, too.”

“And maybe we can grab dinner when I get back?”

Jim looks at him expectantly, and he realizes that Jim is obviously waiting for an answer.

“Yes, that sounds great,” he hears himself say.

“Awesome. We’ll find somewhere quiet this time; I promise.”

“Sounds great.”

God, he's a broken record...

Jim smiles and pushes himself off the doorframe to walk back towards the elevators.

Over his shoulder he calls, “See ya, Sciutto!”

_Shoot-oh._

His heart does a flip, and he squeezes the pen in his hand so tightly that its clear plastic casing cracks.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Jimmy,” a husky voice behind him says.

Jim turns around with his cup of coffee in his hand. It’s Liz. She’s wearing a cream colored suit and little diamond earrings. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a perfectly polished bun. She’s radiant, and he has to remind himself not to let his jaw hit the floor. Jim does allow himself a smile.

“Jimmy?” he asks.

Liz explains.

“Well, I know everyone calls you Sciutto, but constantly using last names sounds overly formal. Like we’re stuffy college professors or something. And you already call me Liz, so I thought you needed a nickname, too. How else will I be able to tell my Jims apart?”

She says it with such wide-eyed earnestness that she couldn’t possibly have a clue as to the impact her words were having on him.

_My Jims._

_My._

“Unless you hate it,” she says. “I can keep calling you Sciutto if you’d prefer.”

_Shoot-oh._

“No, I don’t mind at all. I think Chris Cuomo is the only other person who still calls me Jimmy.”

“Then I guess I’m in good company.”

“You are,” Jimmy says.

And god, he’s already referring to himself as Jimmy just because she said it to him once.

“Good. Well, I’ve got to help with a few live shots, so unfortunately I can't stay and talk, but I know Jim is planning something, I’m sure we’ll see each other soon, Jimmy.”

She smiles.

“See you soon, Liz.”

Jim walks back to his office, and it isn’t until he sits down at his desk that he realizes he’d left his cup of coffee all the way back in the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes Jim daydreams. He never does it intentionally, but sometimes being stuck in the studio all day gets to him, and his mind decides it’s time for a break. He usually allows the indulgence; he likes the ones that aren't really about anything in particular, just disjointed feelings and images that he can fall into. Other times, he relives memories of traveling London or revisits interviews where he wished he’d asked another question or phrased something differently. 

Sometimes it has nothing at all to do with work.

Sometimes it does.

_"Hey, Sciutto,” Jim says._

_He looks up at him with a smile._

_“Hey,” he says tiredly._

_His eyes have circles under them, and empty mugs of coffee sit beside his elbow._

_“Aw, long day?”_

_“Mhmmm.”_

_He’s been sitting at his desk with his laptop for hours, it seemed, staring at the same sentences until they were blurring together into a tangled mess of nonsense phrases._

_“He refuses to come to bed,” Liz pouts._

_Jim tugs on his sleeve._

_“Come to bed with us. Let us take care of you.”_

_He doesn’t bother putting up even a token of a fight, and he walks the few feet to the bed before collapsing onto the pillows and comforter._

_“Isn’t that better?” Liz whispers in his ear as his eyes slip shut._

_Her breath is hot on his neck._

_“Yes,” he breathes._

_Jim curls his body up next to him to his other side, equally warm and soft beside him._

_“I love you, Sciutto.”_

“Sciutto?” a voice says.

He opens his eyes, blinks a few times.

Jim breaks out into a sneaky grin.

“Did I just catch you napping on the job?”

He shakes his head once to knock loose the cobwebs of sleep and rubs his eyes.

“No,” he says. “Just daydreaming. With my eyes closed.”

Jim laughs, and it makes something deep inside him ache with longing to hear that delicious sound more often.

“Are you free to join Liz and me for dinner? Like we talked about last week?”

He doesn’t even check his calendar.

“Yes, I’m free.”

“Great!”

Jim scribbles the details down on a post it note and tells Jim he’ll see him later.

It turns out that Jim did, in fact, have plans. He hopes his source doesn’t mind that he has to call to reschedule.

 

* * *

 

He’s a forty-eight-year-old man, but he’s tried on three different outfits before he settles on a pair of khakis and white button up. Jim decides that comfort is always the right way to go and overthinking things would only drive him crazy. (Well, crazi _er_.) Jim had said the place was nice without being “ _nice_ nice,” so he hopes this works.

He drives himself to the restaurant this time because if he needs to make another break for it, he doesn’t want another instance where he’s sitting around for five ~~hours~~ minutes waiting for a Lyft. Jim and Liz are already seated at the booth when he arrives. They’re sitting across from each other.

“Sciutto!”

 _Shoot-oh_.

“Jimmy!”

They speak at the same time, smiling as he approaches, and his stomach does a happy flip. They were _glad_ to see him. Maybe they were was glad to see him as he was to see them.

“Hey, how are you?” he says.

Jim stands to give him a half hug handshake, and Liz stands to peck him on the cheek, and he wishes he could just live in that moment forever, sandwiched between them, but eventually they both sit back down, and he’s still standing, wondering where he’s supposed to sit.

“I’m assuming you’ll want to sit next to each other?” he says.

“No, sit by me,” Liz says, patting the bench.

He doesn’t require anymore coaxing than that.

“So who else is joining us?” he asks.

“No one,” Jim says. “We wanted to treat you to a nice, quiet dinner. Just the three of us.”

He feels a warmth in his chest that has nothing to do with the wine the waiter just poured. Liz pats his hand.

“We thought we could make up for the memory of other night by replacing it with a happy one instead,” she says.

Overcome with emotion, he holds up his glass to make a toast. They follow his lead.

“To new memories,” he says.

"To new memories."

 

* * *

 

Later, after a night of wine, soft laughter, and gentle, friendly touches, Jim can’t help himself. Alone in his shower with a cascade of warm water splashing across his back, he takes himself in hand. He imagines Jim’s lips on his neck, and Liz’s hands in his hair. Her nails scraping down his back, and Jim thrusting into his ass. Her mouth wrapped around him, and Jim behind him at the same time. Jim comes harder to those images alone than he has in a long time. He spills into his fist over and over until he feels weak in the knees and all he can do is stand numbly under the showerhead until his brain starts working again, and he registers how chilly the waster has become.

He leans down to shut off the water, and he shivers.

He still had a long way to go towards getting over them.


	3. Anger

Everyone at CNN had their flaws; they were only human, after all. Jake Tapper has the reputation for being snarky, almost to the point of cruelty on occasion. Chris Cuomo could be a hothead. Anderson Cooper was known for giggling a lot. Jim Acosta was often called a “grandstander,” though Sciutto could never quite understand why. As someone who had only recently got their own show, the people haven’t made many assumptions of him yet.

In middle school and high school, his teachers often said he was “quiet” and “reserved,” but “incredibly bright.” In college, he had broken out of his shell a bit more and often was told his ability to listen and recall information in great detail would perfectly suit him for a career in journalism. This, of course led him from PBS to ABC and finally to CNN. He even managed to sit down and write a book, too.

Maybe he wasn’t well-known at CNN yet, but he thought he had built himself a good reputation as a kind soul, a hard worker, and a good friend in his various social circles. The one thing most people didn’t know about him, though, was that he could have an epic temper when sufficiently provoked.

Sciutto hated bullies.

He had no tolerance for them, and in this day and age, it was almost impossible to avoid them.

Some of them were worse than bullies. Sometimes, Jim thought, there wasn’t a word big or bad enough to encompass the hatred they disseminated into the world.

And he was especially incensed at the vitriol that was being thrust at Jim Acosta with more and more regularity. He watches Jim give his report to Wolf Blitzer, day in and day out, with huge crowds of Trump supports screaming hateful, and often racist, rhetoric at him.

It makes his blood boil.

Even more so because there is nowhere constructive for the rage to _go_.

 

* * *

 

Jim doesn’t normally work late, but one night he does. Chris Cuomo has him on as a guest, speaking on behalf of the mistreatment of journalists across networks.

“I mean, it’s really awful to see, Chris. These journalists are good people. They want to make sure the people are getting accurate, up-to-the-minute coverage. We’re not trying to hurt anyone. We’re trying to _prevent_ people from getting hurt.”

Chris nods in agreement and plays footage from Jim’s latest Trump rally.

There are more hateful signs, more slurs thrown, and more frightening chants. In the corner of the screen, he sees one of Jim’s new security guards swiftly step into the crowd, pushing a rowdy protestor a little further away from the fence. It makes his blood boil that there even needs to _be_ a fence.

He watches Jim’s face as he talks. Jim looks exhausted. The make-up hides the worst of it, but it’s hard to hide the bone tiredness that has taken over not just the people he works with, but his friends and family too. Everyone was exhausted. But unlike his friends or family, it wasn’t like Sciutto could go up to Jim and hug him.

He couldn’t brush his fingers across his cheek or rub his back, tell him it was okay because he was always going to be on his side. He couldn’t tell Jim that he worried about the time he spent in the press pens at rallies, or how he absolutely hated that they were even called “pens.” As though Jim and the other journalists were cattle to be poked and prodded and mocked.

Sciutto clenches his fists. This wasn’t healthy. Sciutto picks up the remote and turns his T.V. off; he rubs his hands over his face. There was no point in torturing himself. He sighs and stands, suddenly feeling more tired than he had felt in a long time.

He changes into his pajamas and falls into a fitful sleep.

When he awakes the next day, the only thing he is sure of about his dream is that Liz had definitely held his hand.

 

* * *

 

“How do you put up with it every day?” he asks Jim over lunch the next day. “How—how do you stand there and listen to them and focus enough to still say what you came to say?”

Jim smiles.

“Awww, Scuitto.” _Shoot-oh._ “Are you worried about me?”

He takes a drink of his orange juice before answering. It seems like this is okay thing to admit to. A friend would care about another friend’s safety. It didn’t have to _mean_ anything. (Even though to him it did.)

“Of course I worry about you.”

Jim half stands and leans over the table to give him a half hug before sitting back down.

“You’re real sweet, you know that?”

Scuitto feels his face heat, and he feels his pulse rate spike. He was not expecting Jim to touch him, let alone embrace him, even momentarily.

“I—I just don’t want anything to happen to you. People are genuinely crazy.”

“Tell me about it,” Jim says. Jim’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it out of his pocket. “Sorry, I’m being rude. It’s Liz.”

“Oh, how is she?”

It’s out of his mouth before he even realizes he was thinking it. So much for playing it cool. He licks his lips.

Jim types something back, smiling at his screen, before pocketing it again.

“She’s good. She’s really good.”

“Are you two _ever_ going to go public?” he teases.

What was he _doing?_

“We’ve thought about it. I don’t want to put her in danger by association. I’m sure most people have no idea still. We told our families though.”

“Oh?”

“Mhmmm. We’re moving in together this weekend.”

“ _Oh!_ Well, congratulations! That’s pretty serious.”

Jim laughs, and it brings a smile back to Sciutto’s face. His nerves evaporate in favor of the euphoria of seeing Jim in an unguarded moment.

“It is pretty serious, isn’t it?” Jim agrees.

Sciutto holds up his bottle of orange juice in a toast.

“To health and happiness in your new home.”

Jim holds up his coffee cup.

“To health and happiness.”

They both drink.

“Liz and I were gonna have a small housewarming party next weekend, if you’d like to join us. It’s just gonna be a few of our shared friends. We’d love to have you.”

“I’d—I’d be delighted. Thank you.”

“No problem. That’s what friends do, don’t they? Invite them to awkward work functions and parties?”

Jim saw him as a friend?

“I guess they do.”

Jim is quiet for a moment before he says, “You should invite me and Liz to a work function or party.”

If he didn’t know better, he’d think Jim was proposing something beyond what his words implied. Something indecent. He shifts in his seat and tries not to picture anything filthy.

“I’d love to. I mean, I don’t attend many parties or functions, but if I ever do, I’d invite you.”

“And Liz,” Jim adds.

“And Liz,” he echoes.

There’s a moment where he thinks Jim is about to say something else, but he thinks better of it and stands.

“Alright, well, I’ve gotta be off, but thanks for treating me to lunch. Same time tomorrow?”

Sciutto swallows. Well, that was certainly unexpected.

“Of course. That’s what friends do, don’t they?” he parrots.

Jim nods, smiles.

“They do.”


End file.
